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Chapter 43
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Skellig, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Weakness, Strength, and Hardship
Curiosity, Nature, and Transformation
Love, Empathy, and Caregiving
Imagination, Magic, and Faith
Summary
Analysis
The next few days, Michael and Dad visit the baby in the hospital. Her chest bandage is smaller, and she is out of the glass case and always smiling. In the evenings, Michael helps Dad work on the house; they order new numbers off the Chinese food menu, joking that Mum will put them on a diet when she gets home. After dinner, Michael goes to Mina’s to draw. Every time, Mina asks when the baby will be home.
The baby’s health comes with her joy—she smiles more and more as her bandage gets smaller and smaller—and this joy spreads throughout the family. When the times were hard, Michael and Dad had difficulty keeping up their jokes, but now their usual relationship and routine has been restored.
Themes
One afternoon, Michael and Mina go back to the attic and reminisce about Skellig. Scratched into the floor is the outline of a heart around the words “thank you, S.” Three feathers are left, one each for Michael, Mina, and the baby. Shortly, the owls swoop to the window to feed their chicks. Then, the owls lay dead creatures at Michael and Mina’s feet. Lovingly calling the owls savages, Michael and Mina observe that the owls think Michael and Mina are like them. Picking up the creatures, Michael and Mina tiptoe outside and bury them in the garden. Mina says she will delay the renovations until the chicks have flown.
This scene illustrates both the synergy between creatures of different species, but also the important differences between different species. Because the owls trust Michael and Mina and worked with them to nurse Skellig to life, they have come to think of them as one of their kind. Michael and Mina accept this rite of passage by accepting the dead animal presents; significantly, however, Michael and Mina perform a burial for the dead creatures, thereby establishing their own unique role as humans to commemorate the lives that violence took from them.
Themes
